ELISE'S STORY

A fluke. That is how we found out that Elise had T1D. She had no symptoms, and we had no reason to suspect anything was wrong with her. Because she had been diagnosed with UTIs a few months ago, the doctor decided to do a urine test at Elise's 12-month appointment just to make sure it was clean. I think they were as surprised as we were when they found sugar in her urine.

When I got the call Friday afternoon, my stomach dropped. The nurse said it could just be a mistake, and we should bring her in for a retest the next morning. I had a diabetic friend in junior high, so I knew what sugar in the urine meant. I hoped that it was just a mistake.

Saturday we were busy getting ready for Elise's first birthday party, there was a tonne of things to do, but first we had to go to the doctor's for the repeat urine test. We went home and waited for the news. When the doc called she said it was still positive for sugar, so she was waiting to see some results from the blood they had taken the day before. Fred had a lunch to go to, so I was home by myself when the doctor called and told me we needed to take her for another blood test called a hemoglobin A1c. It would show us her blood sugar levels from the past three months.

So off we went to Children's Hospital ER in Plano. The reason we went to Plano was because (our doctor's reasoning) it had only been open for 3 weeks, and wouldn't be as busy as Children's Hospital in Dallas. It wasn't really an emergency, but there wasn't anywhere we could get blood drawn and results back so quickly.

We made it home only 10 minutes before her party was supposed to start. We were about an hour into the party when we got the call. I started to cry and could barely think straight. Our doctor told us we needed to check into Children's Hospital in Dallas so they could monitor Elise. Stunned doesn't even begin to describe how we were feeling.

I am so thankful that we were surrounded by some wonderful friends that were at our house for Elise's birthday party. They stayed with us until we had packed our bags, and even cleaned up our house. We had also called some friends to see if they could look after our dog Seven while we were at the hospital. Pam and Michael live all the way in Richardson, but *just happened* to be in Irving at an event. If you don't know DFW geography, Irving is right on the way to the hospital from our house. Pam and Michael took wonderful care of Seven, even keeping her for a few days after we got home so we could get settled.

On the way to the hospital, all sorts of thoughts ran through my mind, mostly ones where I blamed myself for Elise being sick. It was hard to believe that my daughter, who looked as healthy as any other baby, had this horrible disease raging inside of her. I was also so scared of the unknown. I didn't know what this meant for Elise right now and in her future. And was praying hard, that somewhere, someone had made a mistake.

We checked into the hospital Saturday night and didn't leave until Tuesday afternoon. Those days were a whirlwind of doctors, nurses, information, education and lots and lots of tears. We learned what diabetes is and isn't, how to test blood sugar, how to give insulin shots, how to count carbs and monitor Elise's diet so her blood sugar wouldn't get too high or too low, and what to do if it did.